Double Blind Experiments in Dating

At this point you may have asked yourself why I don’t post Experiments more often. Or you may have asked why I bother writing when it’s not about an Experiment. Or maybe you just wonder what kind of magic happens when you swipe your credit card (seriously, I’m past the age of suspecting elves, but what sort of witchcraft READS that little magnetic strip?!). I don’t know. But what I do know is that first dates are hard.

Think about going on job interviews. You talk for hours with a perfect stranger about why you’re good enough for what they want. First dates aren’t quite as bad, because if you’re on an ok one you shouldn’t really have to sell yourself much. But you do have to temper your best-friend-casual behavior with some perfect-stranger-casual guidelines. And while first dates in general aren’t too wearing on most people, going on a lot of them is wearing sometimes on me. Case in point, last night I got home form work and I was in a rotten mood. Nothing bad had happened, I just felt a bit funky. Work had been slow and I had listened to an episode of This American Life about Infidelity, which got me all riled up about how and why I don’t believe in marriage. This is not the ideal mindset you need to be in when approaching a first date.

When your boss walks in on you sleeping, just take your time coming to and then say 'Amen.'

Last week I conducted an experiment Tuesday, Wednesday AND Thursday after work. By the third date in three days I was so exhausted that I actually wanted a real boyfrined to rub my shoulders and tell me it was all going to be ok. LOLZYHAHAHAHAH!!!!1 Just kidding. Sometimes I say crazy things when I’m tuckered out. But it’s also really hard to be on a first date when you really don’t like the person in front of you (like these guys). Being polite to someone whom you normally would never consider is rough! But totally worth it for the story at the end.

So yeah, it wears on me. I love doing this, and I’m having so much fun meeting new people and sharing my stories about them with you people (thanks mom for reading my blog!), but it takes a lot of effort to do as much research for each post as I do. And that, my dear reader(s?) is why I can only manage to post about two Experiments a week.